


slow dancers

by daisuga



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Implied/Mentioned Depression, M/M, Minor Character Death, Moving On, Slow Burn, don't be scared of the death tag, reconnecting, seungkwan and his gay yearning that lasts for eight years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29494479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisuga/pseuds/daisuga
Summary: “You don’t know him anymore,” Jeonghan says over the call. “Are you sure you’re just not making him into an ideal?”“I don’t think of him as an ideal, per se,” Seungkwan answers. “I don’t know. I just send emails when I feel like sending one, it’s not like I’m sending them every day.”“Are you sending oneright now!?”“No!” Seungkwan flushes, “I sent oneyesterday.”Seungkwan writes some emails.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan & Jeon Wonwoo, Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Comments: 28
Kudos: 116





	slow dancers

**Author's Note:**

> [spotify playlist for this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0DtVVgf4xhwAS2rNTWpJLQ?si=4d41d4d068144d4e)
> 
> this fic is a love letter to the life - and the person - that i never got to choose.  
> almost everything written here (the conversations, the emails, the memories) are real.  
> thank you to everyone in my life, from past to present.
> 
> thank you, my soulmate, for proofreading this, and for extending the grace i never would’ve been able to. i adore you.

Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history.

 **— Hanif Kureishi** , _Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories_

* * *

_Oct 12, 2020, 2:37 AM_

**Subject: _Hansol - Six Years Later  
_**_orange_ <flowervineyards@gmail.com>  
to _hansolvchwe_

this might be your business email; if so, i'm sorry. i will never have the courage to say this to you, so i’ll do it in the most cowardly way possible. you can delete this now, if you want. i just want to get this out of the way, to find some peace for myself [...]

* * *

“Are you really sure you’re all good?”

Wonwoo asks him, but he’s just looking ahead, hair ruffled and sweater looking comfortable. His glasses, shape round and rim thin, look so fragile, much like the rest of him. _No_ , Seungkwan thinks, _I just want to go home with you._ But that won’t be the truth, and after everything that happened _and_ is happening, Wonwoo at least deserves the truth.

He shifts, before trying to hail another taxi. It drives past them. The eco bag he’s holding with his other hand, containing the alcohol Moonbin asked him to bring, feels heavy. The start of February 2021 is brutally cold.

“I promise.”

“You won’t drink too much?”

“No, you know me.”

Wonwoo offers him a smile, but it feels a bit grim at the edges. For this, Seungkwan can’t really blame him. There’s a lot of things he can’t blame Wonwoo for. Seungkwan finally flags down a taxi, the car approaching them feeling a lot like a final question that he feels almost too timid to answer: _Are you sure Seungkwan?_ (He opens the door, and tries not to meet Wonwoo’s eyes). He puts the eco bag on the back seat, before facing his fears and looking at Wonwoo.

Wonwoo finally meets his eyes and Seungkwan, for a moment, feels his heart drop. It’s stupid; it’s nothing big, in retrospect, just him going to his high school reunion party. Yet, it feels like a hard choice to make. It always is, when it comes to Wonwoo and _him_. _But you can't regret hard choices your whole life, right?_ Seokmin’s voice rings through his mind, and he latches on it like it’s a lifeline. But the lifeline quickly becomes a tightrope. And suddenly Seungkwan is performing a balancing act without knowing what the hell he's doing.

“Stay safe.”

 _Will you come back?_ is the unspoken question, a tenderness and vulnerability Wonwoo reserves only for Seungkwan. At times, Seungkwan is so sure that Wonwoo is the braver one between the two of them. How else do you describe someone who accepts a person who loves them, but with a wraith hovering over them? Embrace someone who has a hole in their heart the shape of someone else?

“I will.”

Seungkwan looks away and settles into the seat. He waves at Wonwoo. Wonwoo waves back.

There is a deep, deep emptiness that makes its home in his guts.

* * *

[...] you don't know me, since this is obviously a throwaway. for the short 4 years we were close, you were always ahead of me. during the time we were close, i was with someone else; blinded by someone else, in love with him with my very core. you were always there, though not necessarily for me.

you were just there, hesitant laugh, careless smile, the nervous fidgeting that is always a part of you, only ceased when you have a camera in your hand. you were in love with someone, too, and i was also there. maybe for you. but i never really thought of it that way: i was just being a friend [...]

* * *

Maybe, if Seungkwan really wanted to, he could put the blame on Seokmin.

Wonwoo was right. He shouldn’t have gone with Seokmin and Soonyoung, not when he had morning class the next day. But it had been a horrible week, and Seungkwan felt a lot like tearing his hair out after a stressful meeting about the school publication’s next issue. Back then **—** exiting the building at 9 PM, arms locked with Seokmin and Soonyoung **—** going for a drink seemed like a good idea.

 _Roadkill_ was their frequent hangout; barely a bar, but that was how they liked it. The tables were set up in a parking lot of an abandoned building, a tarp hanging off of the gate. Warm fluorescent lights shone with comfort, a few other college students already drinking on their own tables. Soonyoung chose the seat next to where the food was ordered, an old man grilling pork in his lonesome.

“So,” Seokmin started, grinning in the way all college students do. Tired. “How was your day?”

 _Not good_ , was the answer. It showed. Seungkwan couldn’t really remember how much they drank, but the next thing he knew, they passed the stage of _happy drunks_ and dove straight into the _nostalgic drunks_ phase. Soonyoung was the one who could never hold his alcohol, and that equated to Soonyoung being the only one brave enough to open the metaphorical can of worms rotting inside all of them.

“I saw Jihoon the other day.”

“Yeah?” Seokmin asked, chewing on the pork belly. “How’d that go?”

“I don’t know, couldn’t even call out to him,” Soonyoung admitted, hands playing with his - fourth(?) bottle. “I was about to. But it was going to be embarrassing if he doesn’t even remember me.”

“I’m sure Jihoon-hyung remembers you. You’re each other’s first loves.”

“Will he?” Soonyoung’s eyes squeezed shut, like he was trying to get the alcohol out of his system. There had always been this sort of defiance in these things, that came with the push and pull: you can only talk about them when you’re drunk, but once you do, you start wishing you were sober.

Seokmin’s eyes turned soft, and Seungkwan couldn’t bear to look at it.

He scrolled through his instagram, liking a few posts. Moonbin’s dinner photo from four hours ago. Jeonghan’s weird and fancy Lego collection. He didn’t like Mingyu’s selfie, but he wrote a comment on it and moved past it only to freeze.

In truth, he had no idea why they were still following each other. It had been six years of not talking to each other aside from the polite ‘ _Congratulations!’_ whenever one of them received an award or finished a project; not even a birthday greeting had been exchanged between them. Yet often, Seungkwan would freeze at the first sight of anything related to Hansol, like he was suspended in a chamber, the world ceasing to exist for a brief, deafening moment. And such a sight happened to be staring him right in the face at 1 AM, in the middle of a parking lot turned into a makeshift drinking spot, where time and feelings were never sacred.

 _ **chwenotchew**_ , the username in bold read. Still the same, from all those years ago. The picture was a beautiful graphic layout of what Seungkwan assumed was a theater play’s poster. _Dorothea_ was typed out in an all-capital sans-serif font, letters stretched in a varying amount, yet coming together in a way only Hansol could make it to. The background was a striking bright red, a man on a throne in the middle of it, the photo in negative; But there was a vertical strip covering half of his face down to his torso, him holding a bundle of baby’s breaths, where you can see the original picture. _A sturdy and pure soul_ , the serif font stated plainly above him.

‘Some stuff I made for the upcoming show by @seoularts!’ was what the caption said, with a grinning emoji and a hashtag for the play.

 _Dorothea_. Seungkwan pressed the heart button, watching the red heart flicker briefly on the photo. Seokmin started his playlist, song playing in a low hum, and when Seungkwan turned to look at his friend, he knew it was a mistake; Seokmin could read him faster than anyone else.

“You’re doing it again.”

The tone wasn’t meant to be so accusatory, because Seokmin was nice. But it came out that way anyway, because Seungkwan knew what he was doing, and knew what it meant.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You have _Hansol_ written all over your face,” Seokmin pointed out, “Why do you always look that broken when talking about him? Are you sure you weren’t in love with him?”

“Hey, don’t say that,” Soonyoung pushed at Seokmin lightly, “Wonwoo’s with him.”

“It doesn’t mean _anything_.”

Seungkwan said that as if it would make everything feel better. If they had this conversation two years ago, when they were in second year college, Seungkwan would have blushed and covered his mouth shyly at the mention of Wonwoo. But then, two years ago, this conversation would have never happened, because he hadn't thought of Hansol since high school graduation.

But now. _But now_. Four bottles in his system, and he had to think, because his hesitation to answer already seemed to be something that would change his life forever. _Are you sure you weren’t in love with him?_ felt like a pill he’d never be able to swallow. Was he? That couldn’t be. In high school, he and Hansol were dating other people (God forbid he thought of it now, the cringe being too hard to fight) and surely, _surely,_ he’d have known if he was in love with Hansol. Is in love with Hansol. Right?

_Right?_

Seokmin looked at him with a _look_. It felt a lot like pity, but also felt like he’d known this all along. Like he had heard it; thinly-veiled professions of love underneath Seungkwan’s nostalgia, fond recollections, and admiration of Hansol’s art.

“Oh, Kwannie,” Seokmin said, tone sad, reaching out to wipe away Seungkwan’s tears. He didn’t even know he was crying. “You loved him.”

* * *

[...] i love you, i think, maybe. i'm so cowardly, i can't even admit it even behind a mask. you were both open, and close: i know you - i knew you - and then i didn't. always one step ahead of me, i thought it was just adoration, wanting to be like you, wanting to get your approval, wanting to have you laughing at my jokes or listening to my songs. even when you looked like you were holding back a million things, the world on your back.

i always wanted you to look at me - back then i thought it was just because you were cool, and you were one of my favorites. now i think maybe it's quite a bit like love. your clammy hands in my very own, just as clammy, just as nervous. i hope you are doing well. i think you are. i'm so proud of you. i love you, dearly, a bit more painful than anything back in high school, because i'm flinching in realization as an adult. but i know i have yet to mature [...]

* * *

When they were in high school, they knew each other before they even became classmates.

When Seungkwan’s parents signed him up for the bus service, Hansol was signed up with the same bus, along with three other high schoolers: Kang Hyunggu (Hansol’s best friend), Ju Haknyeon (Seungkwan’s classmate), and Kim Mingyu ( _A funny sophomore_ , Seungkwan thought).

Hansol would always sneak his iPod back then, bringing an aux cord and pestering their bus driver until he let him play his songs. He’d then look out the window, and Seungkwan would look at him, before trying to catch just a bit more sleep on Haknyeon’s shoulder. Kim Mingyu was quiet, but eventually a song played and all of them liked it, quietly singing along to it as the small school bus drove through the streets. Seungkwan would forget a lot of things: What their first conversation was like, how he made Hansol laugh for the first time, how they came to be so close that they waited for each other every day at the covered court before walking to the gate and waiting for their bus.

But Seungkwan would never forget that quiet morning; The soft, dark blue of an incoming dawn, Hansol’s sleepy eyes staring out into the distance. Like he was always chasing something that was beyond both of their comprehension, at 14 years old.

* * *

[...] we are both very different people now. some days, i wish i stayed, i wish you'd let me. it would've been nice, to grow with you. to mature in time, just so i'd be able to stand next to you - and yet i've always been content watching you from afar, your back always a motivation for me to keep on moving forward.

you don't have to reply. i don't even know if you'll see this. idk how. sometimes i remember you and scroll through your twitter and i'm happy you're happy. sad if you're sad. please take care of yourself. i miss you forever; maybe it's for the better.

but if i were to be given a choice, right now, mayhaps i'd pick you.

* * *

**17.** Boo, Seungkwan

 **18.** Chwe, Hansol

By now, Seungkwan freezing up after seeing Hansol-related things was a common occurrence - even if it was just his name on the roll call list for the reunion party.

Come second year, they were somehow placed in the same section after the shuffle. He could still remember how fast Hansol messaged him: _I can’t believe we’re going to be classmates, you, me, and Hyunggu!_

 _I know,_ Seungkwan replied, his heart beating fast; Was it because he won’t be classmates with Haknyeon anymore, or was it because looking at the class list made him feel so elated?

[Boo] and [Chwe].

They were always next to each other in the roll calls and seating arrangements, because of their surnames. In activities and impromptu exercises, Seungkwan always found himself grouped with Hansol, and eventually they would start groaning about it (“I’m so tired of seeing your face,” Hansol would say, without malice and with a smile, and Seungkwan’s heart would skip a beat. “Me too.”). But they got close, closer, _closest_ , even after the whirlwind of going out with other people; it was easy, back then, ‘falling in love’ when you’re fifteen. And they fell hard, for the people they were going out with, and it was a desperate type of love that only comes when you’re in love for the first time.

Or at least that was what Seungkwan believed.

“Kwannie?”

Seungkwan startles as he comes back to reality, the class list they put on the table out in the garden for nostalgia’s sake taking him way back. Seeing their names with each other—next to each other is a jarring experience that makes him realize what he truly signed himself up for.

But Moonbin—taller than he remembers, but the same smile on his lips—is right in front of him, and he can’t afford to fall apart at the start of the party, so he grins and opens his arms. “Bin!”

The hug engulfs him, and it feels a lot like how it used to seven years ago. It’s a tiny gathering at Dahyun’s house, and it only consists of the people in their senior high’s class. They say that people you get close to and meet in your last year of college are people you would keep for a lifetime, and Seungkwan thinks of how he only remembers at least five people in the party right now.

Falling out with a friend feels a lot like a divorce. When he and Hansol drifted apart, he didn’t get to keep that much. For years, he tells himself that he’s fine with it.

“Let me take that,” Moonbin says, finally relieving Seungkwan from the duty of carrying the eco bag. “Did you get here alright?”

“Yeah,” Seungkwan, against his better judgement, scans the area. His eyes sweep through the space, picking apart the faces of the people he hasn’t seen in a long time; some of them, he passed by once or twice, some he actually still hangs out with.

There’s a glass sliding door that separates the garden from the living room, where most of the people are at. The garden has a long table in it, with the food and drinks already fixed. Moonbin sets down the whiskey bottles he asked Seungkwan to bring, before noticing his friend’s gaze fluttering around.

“He’s not here yet.”

“Who?”

 _Fuck_ , Seungkwan thinks. He didn’t mean to sound so defensive.

“Uh,” Moonbin blinks, “Vernon.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think he’s coming, actually.”

“ _Oh._ ”

To that, Seungkwan doesn’t really know what to say. He takes the cup Moonbin offers and downs it without a second thought, the sickly taste of the alcohol stinging his throat. But that’s fine. Anything is better than the actual feeling of disappointment and anxiety bubbling in his stomach.

 _It doesn’t matter_ , he thinks, greeting his old friends and making small talk with them— _How are you? Oh, Kang from 4-7 had a baby last month? That's crazy_ —it doesn’t matter. He plays a drinking game with the rest of them, singing along, hands clapping to the beat— _Seungkwan Seungkwan Seungkwan, then Bin_ —it doesn’t matter. He offers to drink Eunbi’s punishment cup because she has to drive.

“How’s Vernon? I haven’t heard about him in a while,” Dahyun asks randomly amidst the separate chatters, and Seungkwan quietly listens. Hyunggu is there, and Seungkwan only exchanged a smile and a hug with him earlier.

“We don’t talk that much either,” Hyunggu says, “I heard he cheated on his last relationship but I’m not really sure.”

“That doesn’t seem like him.”

“Well, then don’t believe it. It's just what I heard, I didn’t really ask him.”

Seungkwan stands up and excuses himself to go to the bathroom. He puts his head in the sink, closing his eyes for a few minutes to try and channel his remaining sobriety. He stands up straight, and it doesn’t work, because the world tilts harshly and there is laughter from a distance. He lets the tilt slide him over, and he sits on the carpeted floor. Dahyun’s bathroom is really clean. He opens his phone and sends a message to Jeonghan.

_i think im drunk._

_you said you wont drink?_ is the reply that came. _you cute little shit. tell soonyoung to pick you up_

_thanks i love u_

Jeonghan just sends him a video, his hair disheveled and eyes rolling. Seungkwan giggles, feeling entirely grateful to have friends like him, at least, before opening Wonwoo’s chat box. His last message was an hour ago, telling Seungkwan he’ll just play but he can message Wonwoo anytime.

He thinks long and hard about what to say. He types in, _I’m sorry_. He tries to think of more, but there’s nothing left to say. He sends the address to Soonyoung and closes his eyes, just staying there for a while. What is it, then, that he’s missing so badly that there always has to be this underlying guilt? He thinks of the first time he told Wonwoo that he loves him, how much he meant it at that time. He still does - he still so painfully means it, but underneath that is a wound still unhealed. And Seungkwan realizes he’s in the middle of that wound, and there’s a small fear that it’s a wound that will never heal.

He stays on the floor, eyes closed, head against the wall. There’s a small comfort in having his own little space in here. He can hear the others still laughing and chattering outside, slowly getting more and more quiet. After an hour and a half, the door opens and Moonbin peeks in, giving him a small smile.

“Hey Kwannie, you okay?”

Moonbin closes the door and sits next to him. Seungkwan nods, resting his head on Moonbin’s shoulder. There’s less noise now, and Seungkwan listens to the quiet whir of the ventilation fan.

"Some of them are leaving already," Moonbin said, looking at the grey-tiled ceiling. "What are you thinking of?"

"Have you ever had regrets in high school?"

"Many."

"Do they ever haunt you?"

"Absolutely," Moonbin sighs out a little breath. "You?"

"The whole night I kept on thinking ' _I should've said this, I could've done that_ …' because if I did things differently maybe I wouldn't be so hung up over things from years ago," Seungkwan admits. "But we're very different people now compared to who we were back then, aren't we? Our feelings are different too."

Moonbin stays silent for a while, before saying, "Were you hoping he'd be here?"

Moonbin is using his _be honest with me_ voice, and Seungkwan is always honest when he uses it.

"Yeah," He quietly says, "I was."

* * *

_Oct 18, 2020, 3:56 PM_

**Hansol Vernon Chwe** <hansolvchwe@gmail.com>  
to _me_

Hey, stranger.

For whatever it's worth, I check this email religiously. Replies are few and far apart though, because life gets in the way, and because I've never really been good at connecting, have I? [...]

* * *

Seungkwan only saw Hansol once since graduation.

It was during a concert held by their alma mater. Seungkwan was walking around with Soonyoung and Seokmin outside the covered court, when he heard a very familiar ‘ _Hey, Seungkwan!_ ’

Of course it was Hansol. 2017 Hansol changed a lot; He had a soft grin, clad in his pink beanie and washed-out denim jacket. With a twinge in his heart, Seungkwan smiled. He still had a camera in his hands. The chatter around them was loud, and there was music, and Soonyoung was yelling, but it was all too deafening to be there in that moment.

“Hansol!”

He opened his arms, hesitant; if Hansol noticed, he didn’t let it be known. He surged forward to hug Seungkwan.

“Hey, it’s so nice to see you,” He said, eyes bright and twinkling, Seungkwan’s brain in a tizzy. One for the money, two for the show, and they break apart from their hug. “How have you been? You’re in KNUA, right?”

 _Why do you care_ , Seungkwan wanted to say, _where I go_? But he couldn’t possibly say that. So he swallowed the bitterness in him and said, “Yeah, I’ve been good. And you?”

“Been good, too.”

Hyunggu and his other friends that Seungkwan didn’t look at because he was too afraid started calling for Hansol. Behind him, he could hear Soonyoung and Seokmin conversing, eating their scones. And Seungkwan’s hands were clammy, so very clammy, and nervous, and torn, and he felt his heart shaking for no reason at all.

“I gotta go. See you around?”

That’s impossible. KNUA was two hours away from Seoul Arts. They would literally never see each other ever again, unless they go to the same events. Like this one. The thought of it made the void spread from his heart to his lungs.

“Yeah,” Seungkwan breathes out, hand waving, “See you.”

Hansol shot him one last familiar smile.

* * *

[...] I'm hardly the same person I was years ago (or at least I like to think so) and I'm not quite sure what it is I did to make all of this happen, but here's to hoping that whatever happened in between made us both better people. Or try to be. I can't be an ideal for you because I'm really not (all I really claim to be doing is trying my best), but if any of this helps you get to a point that feels lighter to you, then I'm all ears. Atonement, I guess, for whatever happened years back [...]

* * *

Ri Sungmin died.

He gets the message while he’s in the library with Wonwoo and Soonyoung. It’s Moon Hyungseo who told their high school class’ group, forwarding a Facebook post by one of Sungmin’s sisters. It was a pretty picture of her, one that Seungkwan vaguely remembers, and he clicks on the link while his brain struggles to process.

_Our dearest friends, we are deeply saddened to inform you that our sweet youngest sister, Ri Sungmin, joined our Creator last night, May —_

“Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan inhales, looking up from his laptop alarmedly, meeting Soonyoung and Wonwoo’s worried gazes. “Huh? What?”

“Is everything alright?” Wonwoo touches his hand lightly. “You’re so pale.”

“I’m good—just—my old high school...” He struggles to say the word. “... _friend_. She died.”

“Oh no, I’m so sorry, Kwannie,” Soonyoung immediately latches unto him, and Wonwoo laces their fingers together.

Seungkwan looks back at the photo. _Friend_. They were close, surely, and Sungmin was part of their circle. She was frank and blunt and held no bars, which was why people loved her. But does he even have the right to call her a friend, now? Is it okay for him to feel this torn about her passing when they haven’t talked in seven years? He feels his bile rising, a mild form of anxiety tingling at his fingertips.

He flinches when he feels Wonwoo poke at him with a cold water bottle, pouting at the man. He takes the bottle and drinks it anyway.

_Sungmin would love you to share memorable stories we can hold by and if you wish to bring her flowers, her favorite is Hydrangea._

In the group chat, Hyungseo says that they’re going to buy a wreath for her, and that they’ll all pool money for it if they want to. Most of his old classmates immediately answered — he sees the ones he remembers: Moonbin, Eunbi, Dahyun…

_**Chwe Hansol** _

i’ll pay too

Seungkwan takes a sharp intake of breath. From across him, Wonwoo is still watching him. Next to him, Soonyoung is giving him space, reading his book, but his body is still melting into Seungkwan’s. For no reason at all, Seungkwan raises a shaky hand and tilts down the laptop just a bit. Like it’s a secret. He doesn’t know why — and Wonwoo certainly doesn’t know, either, but he’s patient. So, so patient. Soul-crushingly patient. He is, for a second, reminded of what Soonyoung said to him when he picked him up after the reunion party.

His fingers move on their own.

_**Boo Seungkwan** _

Me too

A bunch of people heart-reacted his reply. There’s a lot of heart reacts happening in the replies, and Seungkwan, just for a bit, feels an inexplicable dread. When was the last time he talked to Sungmin? When was the last time he talked to most of them? He could hear Jeonghan chiding in his ear — _The emails don’t count, Kwannie, and you should really stop sending those_ —

_**Na Ungjae** _

do you want to go to the funeral with me?

It’s a private message, and Seungkwan feels his heart clench. Ungjae. They haven’t talked in a little over a year; Seungkwan thought they were fine, that they were close enough to not drift apart, but he’s suddenly confronted with the fact that he doesn’t know how Ungjae is even holding up. He could go for the easy way out (Say, _Sure, do you want us to go with Bin?_ ) because Ungjae is one of the nicest people he knows. But he’s not really sure about a lot of things right now, and all he knows is he doesn’t want to be alone at the funeral.

_**Boo Seungkwan** _

Sure. Where do we meet?

“Are you going to be okay?”

Seungkwan sighs and looks up at Wonwoo. His hair is down and his glasses are on. He has been in the library with Seungkwan for five hours, each of them working on their own projects; his headphones are comfortably slung around his neck, a tell that he’s taking a break from coding the app he had to make for his finals. Seungkwan’s video editing file is still open, his final’s week project begging to be finished. Compulsively, he presses ctrl + S, just in case Premiere crashes while he’s having an existential crisis.

He manages to give Wonwoo a smile, squeezing his hand.

* * *

[...] I don't know if this is the response you want, but it's all I can give you. Hope things are well on your side of the world.

* * *

Ungjae’s mom works at a publication company, and Seungkwan commutes there so he can wait for them.

Seungkwan didn’t have to worry, after all, because Moonbin is already there when he arrives.

“Kwannie, hey,” he greets, giving a hesitant smile. Seungkwan understands. It’s kind of hard to be glad to be meeting people at a funeral, and that extends to en route. “We’re just waiting for Ungjae’s mom.”

And then there’s Ungjae, just a little bit shorter than Seungkwan, hair brown and hugs sharp. Seungkwan closes his eyes and hugs him harder, just because. There’s been a lot of thoughts about people he burned bridges with in his mind, lately, and the attempts to drown it with work did not help at all.

They’re squeezed next to each other at the back of the car, Ungjae’s mom polite enough not to talk, or maybe she just doesn’t know what to say. The radio is on, volume set at an impossibly soft volume, and Seungkwan fiddles with the take out coffee he bought before coming. The traffic is unbearable.

“I went there yesterday,” Moonbin starts, voice low, as if they’re going to break something if they speak any louder. “She looks different. Like she died but she’s still holding in a lot of things.”

“It’s horrible. I didn’t know the first time we’d _all meet together_ would be when one of us dies.”

Seungkwan looks out the window. It’s already evening; his phone says it’s 7 PM. There’s light rain outside, droplets down the scene, and he lets himself be lulled into comfort by the blurred red and orange lights.

“How did she die?”

“They said she fell down from the balcony of her condo.”

“ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah, Jihae and her other friends are taking it pretty hard since they went out drinking with her the night before,” Ungjae leans on the backseat fully, eyes trained on the ceiling. “No one really knows what happened because she seemed _fine_.”

Seungkwan listens quietly, forehead pressed on the window. It’s cold, and his eyes feel heavy. He made the mistake of pulling an all-nighter the day before, the iced americano now just a bitter aftertaste on his mouth. Like an old book—like he just chewed on cardboard. He doesn’t want to think about anything, but he has to, because there’s a hidden guilt underneath all this.

They reach the funeral home in an hour. Outside the building, there are a lot of cars, and Seungkwan could already see some of their batchmates; most of them, smoking.

They greet each other and express their condolences to each other. Seungkwan goes through the motions like a machine: whether or not it’s a coping mechanism. His mind evades people’s faces and the unsettling heavy atmosphere that comes with people wearing black. The marble floors are shiny, and they pass by two different rooms before they finally arrive to where they’re supposed to be in.

_Ri Sungmin._

Her casket is rose gold. _It’s such a pretty color_ , Seungkwan thinks. The room is filled with hydrangeas, and most of his classmates are seated on the last row. Right next to the entrance, a light pink cartolina is on the wall, scrawled with drawings and messages. Next to it, Sungmin’s last written works are displayed. Seungkwan smiles politely at people greeting him, giving Hyungseo the money for the wreath.

He shuffles to the side, and reads Sungmin’s work.

 _When I die_ , it reads, _I want to take with me the places I travelled to. My body is a collection of experiences and culture—my hands, the winter in Japan, my cheeks, the summer in Paris…_

“She wrote pretty well, didn’t she?”

Seungkwan looks over and smiles when he sees who it is. Lee Chan.

“Hey, it’s been a while, huh?”

Chan hugs him, and Seungkwan pats his back, before they break apart.

“Have you seen her?”

“Not yet.”

“Not ready yet?”

“Not really,” Seungkwan mutters, looking over at the casket. Sungmin’s girlfriend is sitting in the front row, her sister comforting her. Seungkwan’s mouth turns into a flatline. “But then again, I might just never be ready.”

“Want me to come with?”

Normally, he would’ve said no. Chan and him always had a sibling-like aggression in their relationship, but Seungkwan genuinely feels like he’s going to be shaken; he hasn’t been to an actual funeral in years. His relatives tend to cremate the body outright, so there hasn’t been a chance for him to be confronted by his mortality, or the fact that everything can just disappear so easily, or the fact that someone he used to laugh with and hug and talk to and get updated by will never come back again.

“Okay,” he says, and feels eternally grateful when Chan holds his hand.

“She looks different.”

“Mhm, Ungjae was right.”

“She’s so pretty though, isn’t she?”

“She’s always been pretty.”

She looks at peace, like this, even though she’s near unrecognizable. Polaroid pictures of her with her friends litter the table next to her casket, along with her crocheted clothes and bags. Seungkwan presses his hands together, saying a prayer. He spies the countless funeral wreaths and bouquets of hydrangeas littering the place and briefly, he wonders if there would be just as many if it’s finally his time to go. His mind flashes the scenario; baby’s breaths instead of hydrangeas, white instead of rose golds. He feels a bit sick.

“Goodbye, Sungmin,” Chan says, soft and quiet, and Seungkwan realizes, with a drop, that _this_ goodbye is final.

Seungkwan takes a last good look at her; Sungmin and her long hair and her floral blouse. Eyes closed, mouth in a flat line. Like they tried to make her smile but she just couldn't.

“Goodbye, Sungmin.”

They turn and walk to the second row, only for Seungkwan to gasp and freeze.

Suddenly, it feels a lot like he’s suffocating. His heart is beating too loud, and his mind is screaming at him to look anywhere, look at literally _anywhere else_ , but he couldn’t because they saw him and they’re smiling at him and —

“Seungkwan, hi!”

Hyunggu greets him first, reaching over to hug him. Then Changmin, then —

_Hansol._

Hansol smiles at him, gentle and soft and everything. _Everything_. His hair is black, swept to the side, and he’s wearing a hoodie and he looks like he’s genuinely glad to hug Seungkwan, squeezing extra hard before letting go. Seungkwan feels electricity between his toes, at his fingertips, in his lungs.

“How did you get home during the reunion?” Hyunggu asks, laughing quietly. “You were pretty hammered.”

Seungkwan winces at the reminder, before returning the laugh with a vague hand motion. “Ah, my friend picked me up.”

“It’s good to see you,” Hansol speaks this time, hazel eyes looking up at Seungkwan, imprinting and observant. Seungkwan wants to look away, but he couldn’t, because. It’s Hansol. “I mean it.”

He tries to catch his breath, feeling Chan watching him from behind. His bag is empty, and he’s light as he could be, but right now it feels like he’s in a tar pit, slowly sinking. His brain briefly wonders what else he can say, but as always, there’s nothing left to say. He smiles sadly at Hansol.

“Same here.”

* * *

_Apr 29, 2021, 11:50 PM_

**orange** <flowervineyards@gmail.com>  
to _hansolvchwe_

the posters for wong kar-wai's "Blossoms" released today and i am brimming with emotion.

wkw is perhaps my most favorite director, only ever rivaled by few (koreeda, chan-wook, yang, to name a few) and it's just crazy to think about how cinema can teach you things. films by wkw and the others are just so, so magically amazing that you can't help but love love, can't help but want to to create. what an honor, to be able to just give out your heart and have everyone see and consume it. what an honor, to be able to receive someone's story and passion. not yours, but having the opportunity to make it yours.

i love cinema. i love feeling. i love you. it's crazy, how everything can just curl up and implode, all emotions at once [...]

* * *

“You have a boyfriend already?”

“...Yeah."

Seungkwan brings Chan to _Roadkill_. It’s two in the morning and they have to stop somewhere else after the funeral anyway, and they’re both in the mood to drink. Jeonghan and Seokmin invited themselves over, and now they’re stuck drinking beer, but not quite drunk.

“Kwannie is too busy sending emails even if Wonwoo is already his boyfriend though," Jeonghan says, sticking his tongue out at Seungkwan when the younger man gives him a soft glare. He clinks their beer bottles together. “Kidding?”

“What emails?”

“No, it’s nothing,” Seungkwan kicks both Jeonghan and Seokmin underneath the table, ensuring their silence. “Don’t listen to them.”

They laugh, and Chan takes out a pack of cigarettes. “You mind?”

All of them shake their heads, and Chan lights a stick before offering Seungkwan one; He accepts it, taking a hit and blowing. The wind picks up, oddly chilly, and Seungkwan recounts his memories about high school; Chan, Sungmin, Hansol, and everyone else.

“Did you know that the first person I smoked with was Sungmin?”

“Really?” Seungkwan laughs, “I thought it was me.”

“No, it was her.”

“When?”

“In second year. We were at the carpark after school and she gave me a Marlboro Red,” Chan hums and taps at the ashtray. “That was her favorite. Sorry I only have Marlboro Black, Sungmin.”

Chan takes out another stick, lighting it and perching it on the ashtray. Seungkwan’s gaze flutters down to it, and the wind blows stronger. Almost like Sungmin was there smoking with them. Jeonghan and Seokmin listen to their stories, giving them space to talk. Letting them grieve in their own little bubble.

“Don’t you hate Sungmin?”

“ _What._ ” Seungkwan chokes on his breath out of surprise at the sudden outburst from Chan. “What, no I don’t.”

“Yeah you do,” Chan points at him, a shit-eating grin on his face. “It used to be four of you, right? Hansol, Hyunggu, Changmin, and _you_. But Sungmin replaced you in senior year. Whatever happened there?”

“No, I don’t hate her,” Seungkwan tries to defend, though he could feel the truth about to burst out of him. “Maybe just a little hurt? I don’t really know until now what happened. We all drifted apart.”

Chan’s grin slips off his face, like he’s slowly realizing the weight of this on Seungkwan’s psyche. In a way, it makes Seungkwan proud of himself; he really tried not to make it show, and hung out with his other friends, but it’s clearly a wound that festered deep on him, a void he most likely will carry for the rest of his life. Something emails will never resolve, not unless Hansol somehow finds out who he is. And even then, it depends if they will ever do something about it.

“I don’t think we should talk about this right now.”

Seokmin interrupts nicely, because he’s Seokmin and he hates seeing Seungkwan like this. He shoots him a smile, then gives another one to Chan just to wipe off the now apologetic expression he’s wearing on his face. It works, to an extent, and Seungkwan tries hard not to melt underneath Jeonghan’s observant gaze.

“Anyway,” Chan says, “How about I tell you the time where Seungkwan and I had a crush on each other?”

Seungkwan bursts out laughing, and shoves everything related to Hansol to the back end of his mind for now. On the ashtray, the cigarette is already halfway smoked out.

* * *

[..] when dorothea was announced, i was going to watch. i saw your work and felt - something. when i was about to buy the tickets, i backed out, suddenly having cold feet at the thought of seeing you. don't you think it's silly? wanting to see you, but afraid of being able to anyway. wanting to smile at you, but terrified of what it takes to _get there_.

before that, i already saw you. i think once. maybe twice. i can't remember, but all i know is that all the times after graduation, having you _see me_ , not phase through me, made me shake [...]

* * *

Seungkwan gets home.

He’s not drunk, but he sobs, and sobs, and sobs well into the night.

The morning comes and he quietly slides Sungmin’s graduation photo into his wallet. When he falls asleep, he dreams of her, dancing on her balcony, hands stretched outwards and spinning, smiling at Seungkwan.

* * *

[...] i wish i watched. not just for the sake of seeing you. i wonder what the plot was like. i wonder, still, now and then, how it went, and what i would've felt. would i have cried? and if i did, i wonder what the tears would've been for.

* * *

His mother used to hold his hand, and tell him, “You and me, we can't love as hard as other people, because we're like glass. We're made of _glass_ , Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan never understood what it meant until he grew up.

Some days, he wakes up, and feels the way he fractured himself into billions of other pieces in order to give the amount of love he thinks people deserve. He learns quickly, then, that some people just don’t give the piece back. Sometimes they take the piece he hands out, smiles at him, and leaves forever, and there’s going to be a part of him that will always be missing because of it. And the feeling of incompleteness will stay for so long that if they ever come back, it won’t even be the same again.

There’s a Russian word that perfectly describes it, during his research for prose to publish in the college newspaper. Перехотеть. _Perekhotet_. It’s a word describing the feeling of when you spend so much time wanting something, that when you finally get it, you find that you no longer want it.

“You don’t know him anymore,” Jeonghan says over the call. “Are you sure you’re just not making him into an ideal?”

“I don’t think of him as an ideal, per se,” Seungkwan answers. “I don’t know. I just send emails when I feel like sending one, it’s not like I’m sending them every day.”

“Are you sending one _right now!?_ ”

“No!” Seungkwan flushes, “I sent one _yesterday_.”

“Listen, I’ll be honest, because no one is going to tell you otherwise and Wonwoo is too nice,” Jeonghan continues, “But I don’t get why you need him back in your life. And it’s not like in the ‘ _Oh, I missed our friendship_ ,’ way but more of an ‘ _Oh, actually I’m really in love with you_ ,’ way.”

“I don’t —”

“And, Seungkwannie, I don’t really want to compare Hansol with Wonwoo, because that’s not fair. They’re both completely different people. Let’s learn to settle and be happy.”

Seungkwan melts into his bed, and feels the dread slowly taking over him. As if it’s tar, like the one back at the funeral; the heaviness trapping him, his white ceiling not even helping in regards to sorting his thoughts out. Bookkeu curls up around his feet, and it’s one tiny comfort out of a million different instances of hurt.

“ _Settle_ is such an odd word. It sounds so sad.”

“Well, yeah, unless you’re going to pursue Hansol—which, _please_ , tell me you won’t?” Jeonghan’s tone sounds unsure and pleading towards the end. “You’re still with Wonwoo.”

“Yeah, I’m just…gonna just silently wallow in pitiful yearning, I guess.”

Seungkwan swallows: the heaviness, the uncertainty, the feeling of a huge, missing piece.

“I mean, we’re gay, yearning is basically _our thing_ ,” Jeonghan laughs lightly, “But we also just don’t feed into the yearning, Seungkwan.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Seungkwan breathes out. “Anyway, how’s your dissertation?”

Jeonghan rants about his professor, and about Joshua, and about their broken printer, and a small smile touches Seungkwan’s face. Someday, he thinks, he wants to _settle_. Living every day with someone quietly, a cat and a dog and potted plants in the balcony, like the ones in his mother’s house. He tries to picture himself with Wonwoo; those countless times where he wakes up first whenever he sleeps over, the golden sunlight filtering through the window of his room, the smell of old books and coffee prominent. The gentle beating of Wonwoo’s heart against his ear as he presses it down on his chest, eyes trained on the wooden wall. _Settle_.

He thinks of when he first told Wonwoo about the emails. The silence, the wide eyes of surprise, Seungkwan’s palms sweaty and nerves going insane

 _Well,_ Wonwoo said, _did he reply?_

Yeah.

_Oh._

“And you? How’s your classes?”

Jeonghan’s question jolts him back to reality, and Seungkwan just says the truth: “Well, I’m still alive. At least.”

“See, Kwannie?” Jeonghan says, as if pointing out the obvious. “That’s another example of _settling_.”

* * *

**WW** : it sucks because i want to be there for you

 **WW** : and be more than enough for all your troubles

 **WW** : but that's never gonna happen and that's why we need other people as well to help us

 **WW** : i just take solace in the fact that at the end of the day you say goodnight to me and not him

* * *

The second time Hansol replied to his email, it was during the New Year’s.

Seungkwan impulsively emailed a greeting 20 minutes after midnight. Four hours later, a reply came from Hansol; he was drunk, and it seemed like an equally impulsive email from his part, too.

_[...] but my promise is to treat people to kindness this year._

_you’re doing well i hope._

_best,_

_vern_

By the end of the email, Hansol attached a specific electronic signature for Seungkwan, and a PS.

_"We must respect those who were brave enough to fall in love during the war, knowing we were all walking away from each other."_

_\- Gian Lao_

_ps u have abt 1 hr of full ass candid replies if u want. im drunk but not crashing._

The email was sent at 4:55 AM. But Seungkwan spent the whole midnight to morning playing a game with Wonwoo and their mutual friend, Junhui. They played from 1 AM to 6 AM, and when Seungkwan finally settled on his bed and felt the very first warm sunlight of 2021 hit his face, he saw the email.

His mother lives and dies by superstition, and until now Seungkwan wonders if that was a sign; How ironic, then, that he missed a window of honesty with Hansol because he was enjoying his own, present life? Was that supposed to mean anything? Were they doomed to just always be like _this_ , just about to be there, but always not enough?

He sent a reply at 9 AM. _you mean so much more than you know_ , Seungkwan typed.

Hansol didn’t reply.

* * *

_Jan 26, 2021 5:42 AM_

**orange** <flowervineyards@gmail.com>  
to _hansolvchwe_

anyway, don’t leave a stranger

* * *

When Seungkwan thinks of Hansol, there are two vivid memories he remembers as if it was yesterday.

The first one is silly. It was in senior year, and Hansol took a huge dose of cough syrup with Hyunggu to get high. It didn’t hit him until the last period, just before dismissal. It was Chemistry, so they had to file out and move to the lab. Boo and Chwe were always partnered up—Hansol, then, was Seungkwan’s responsibility.

The teacher was walking ahead of the class, so she didn’t notice the fuckery happening at the very back of the line, where Seungkwan and some of their classmates were laughing over Hansol’s state; He kept on insisting that the floor was tilting and crouched down, crawling instead of walking.

“I think,” Hansol announced, looking pale, “That I’m going to puke.”

“Are you kidding me. Come here.”

Seungkwan hauled him up, arm around Hansol’s waist while he made Hansol lean on him, arm slung over his shoulder. Hansol barely made it; He puked into the sink, but that also meant that he puked on the tail-end of his necktie, his G-tech pen, and his pencil case; all of which he just dumped into the sink. Seungkwan had the foresight to be the one carrying all his lab papers.

“You’re fucked up,” Seungkwan muttered, pushing back Hansol’s hair. Hansol wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, unfocused eyes trying _really_ hard to lock on Seungkwan’s face. “You’re a mess.”

“Alpduiwn?” Hansol slurred, but it was incoherent and Seungkwan laughed at him. He pulled Hansol to the other sink, opening the faucet and helping him wash his seemingly boneless hands. He held him by the wrist and shook them off, before wiping off his lips.

“Rinse your mouth,” Seungkwan ordered, and Hansol seemed to have understood it because he nodded and did just that.

Seungkwan poked through the other sink to rotate the drain stopper, not even minding the puke Hansol wretched out. He opened the faucet and cleaned off the end of the necktie, then the ballpen, then the pencil case. He pumped out soap from the dispenser to make sure everything was thoroughly cleaned before rinsing them all over again, _then_ washing his hands.

When he sighed out of relief and looked over to Hansol, a grin made its way to his face when Hansol had his head just dunked in the sink, letting the water run through his hair.

He closed that faucet, too, and wiped at Hansol’s face with his handkerchief. He carried all of their things, this time, which wasn’t that hard.

He had to do everything for that lab activity, but he didn’t mind. He loved the subject, and maybe he didn’t know it at the time, but as it turned out he loved Hansol then, too. He told Hansol to take a nap as he did the experiments and compared answers with their table-mates. He wrote the answers on their sheets—paraphrased it for Hansol’s paper—and submitted them in. Still faster than most of the others in class.

Hansol snuggled beside him on the school bus that day, on the way home. He didn’t say anything. Seungkwan thought maybe he wasn’t coherent enough to say anything yet, anyway.

But he did let Seungkwan hold his hand the whole time.

* * *

_Jan 27, 12:57 AM_

**Hansol Vernon Chwe** <hansolvchwe@gmail.com>  
to _me_

great song

* * *

"Soonyoung is in love with Wonwoo."

Seungkwan blurts it out uncontrollably, while he and Seokmin are eating in the convenience store. It's still rush hour, and the cheap food feels heavier in his stomach than it usually does.

Seokmin drops his chopsticks into his bowl, eyes wide and mouth open, only for it to shut then open again, like his tiny brain is trying to compute what Seungkwan just revealed. It fails, but at least the core message of the statement permeated through him.

“And you know this how?”

“When he picked me up from the reunion,” Seungkwan said, redirecting his gaze to his phone. “We were at the 7-11 nearby where he bought me ice cream. I was ranting about a musical and Soonyoung said, ‘ _Wow, you’re really drunk_.’”

“Funny, usually it’s the other way around.”

Seungkwan makes a face, remembering all the times a drunk Soonyoung tried to kiss everyone. “Yeah, I know.”

“Then what?”

“Then he told me the truth. He said, ‘ _Kwannie, I think I love Wonwoo._ ’”

“And?”

“And,” Seungkwan fidgets with his chopsticks, “I think he really does.”

“Well, how about you? Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Love Wonwoo,” Seokmin clarifies, “Do you love him?”

“Of course I do.”

Seungkwan looks out into the window. Seokmin can read him faster than anyone else. It’s a skill he learned from being friends with Seungkwan since their first year in college, and in return Seungkwan learned the skill of being unashamedly honest in front of him. Countless times Seokmin had taken care of him, and Seungkwan, him. Seungkwan knows Seokmin knows.

“There’s a _but_ there somewhere,” Seokmin states, “But I won’t pry if you aren’t ready.”

Seungkwan leans his head on Seokmin’s shoulder, and they look out at the streets outside. It’s raining, and Seungkwan doesn’t have an umbrella, but that’s fine. The sound of the droplets hitting the window and the roof and the pavement gives him just a little bit of comfort. He watches the people running to take shelter, or struggling to get an umbrella out of their bags. The rush hour is going to be more horrid now, and the buses are still filled to the brim. They’ll be here until midnight.

“I don’t think I deserve him,” Seungkwan whispers. “I don’t think I’m loving him _enough_.”

“That’s for him to decide. But how about _you_? Do you _want_ to be with him?”

The rain falls, and Seokmin doesn’t speak when Seungkwan doesn't answer.

* * *

_Jan 31, 2021 10:09 AM_

**orange** <flowervineyards@gmail.com>  
to _hansolvchwe_

good morning, in case no one greeted you today

make coffee  
blink the sleep away  
take care of yourself

* * *

Wonwoo was his best friend before he was his boyfriend.

For Seungkwan, they first met in a mandatory general education subject when he was in second year college. Wonwoo was older, but he transferred from Seoul National University to KNUA and had to take the subjects that didn’t get carried over. Soonyoung was their mutual friend, and they hung out together during a volunteer work required by the subject.

“It’s so hot,” Seungkwan said. The camera in his hands was heavy, and he was the head of the documentary team so he had to go around a lot.

“Sorry, my fault,” was Wonwoo’s quip, and Seungkwan looked at him.

His first thought: _Wow, he’s handsome._ His second thought: _Oh, he meant it’s hot because he’s hot_. Seungkwan grinned, not one to be outwitted, really.

“Oh, really? Guess the heat is different when you come from hell, huh?”

Wonwoo blinked, surprised at the quip, before laughing, a hand coming up to hide his huge grin. _Oh no_ , Seungkwan thought, _he’s more handsome when he’s smiling_.

“My name is Seungkwan,” he introduced himself, hand outstretched. Wonwoo takes it, and shakes it twice.

“I’m Wonwoo.”

Seungkwan, then, would find out a year and a half later that the first time they met was at the bar where the Christmas party was held.

It sounds about right that he doesn’t remember it, because he was drinking, and the lights were dim and there were too many people talking at the same time. He was squeezed between Jeonghan and Seokmin, and Wonwoo said that back then, he really wanted to talk to Seungkwan, but Soonyoung thought Seungkwan was dating Seokmin.

“That’s so stupid,” Seungkwan chortled, leaning on Wonwoo. “I would never go out with Seokmin.”

“Yeah, well, what did I know?” Wonwoo snickered. “Besides, I think it’s better that we met somewhere that is _not_ a club. That doesn’t seem like an _us_ thing.”

Seungkwan played with Wonwoo’s sleeves. The couch was comfortable, and the big windows were opened, letting in a strong breezy wind. The trees outside were swaying, leaves rustling; a storm might be coming in.

“Do you think we’re meant to be together after three years of friendship because we had to be better people first?”

“Do you think we’ve become better people?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think we’ve grown and become better people?”

"Well, I've become good at video games, and because you were a Political Science major, I finally had someone to properly debate with," Seungkwan listed off, laughing as Wonwoo jostled him. "And I think we're more mature now."

"I _was_ a Political Science major," Wonwoo corrected, "Now I'm just a tired Software Engineering major, like everyone else."

They laughed quietly as the rain poured, so strong that some of the droplets got in the living room. The cold was comforting in a way, and Seungkwan looked down at the silver ring his mom gave him, which he then gave to Wonwoo. It grounded him for a bit, giving him a sense of normalcy and belongingness.

 _Settle_.

"You know I love you," Wonwoo said, both a shout and a murmur in Seungkwan's ears. His voice echoed, and echoed, and the wind grew stronger and the scene changed.

Suddenly, he was at his old high school's lawn. It was after class and impossibly empty, the sun just setting into the violet and orange skies. He walked to the old, humongous mango tree that was planted from years ago.

"Hansol?"

Hansol turned around, and it was 2021 Hansol, hair black and denim jacket on. He was holding something, his hand bleeding.

"What's that?"

Hansol's hand unfurled. On his palm, a shard of glass stained with blood.

Seungkwan wakes up with a jolt.

* * *

_April 30, 2021, 1:50 PM_

**Hansol Vernon Chwe** <hansolvchwe@gmail.com>  
to _me_

you make me want to be a director

* * *

"You don't have to do this."

"It's no big deal, hyung."

" _No big deal?_ " Jeonghan repeats, almost scandalous. "Seungkwan, you have your video editing finals to worry about. Why are you helping me?"

" _Because_ ," Seungkwan impatiently says, his typing on his laptop growing aggressive, "My life is a mess and I can't fix it so I cope by fixing other people's problems. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I wanted to hear the truth, but that sounds just about right."

Jeonghan seems halfway between frantic and disappointed, so Seungkwan highlights the part he stopped at and sighs, leaning back and looking at his friend. Jeonghan just looks at him, glasses trying to hide the eyebags and the stress. He still looks so charming and handsome, though, that Seungkwan thinks it's not really fair.

"I'm sorry, okay," Seungkwan tries again, this time with a tone that suggests he means it. "It's been a rough week. I think I'm going to flunk that subject _again_ and I've been snapping at Wonwoo a lot and we kinda fought?"

"Did you push him too far about talking about his feelings?"

"It's _hard_ ," Seungkwan groans out, "He says it's okay but it's really not. And then it eats me alive and it eats him alive, so where does that lead us?"

"I know this is old, and I say this a lot, but just talk to him," Jeonghan looks helpless for once, not really sure what advice to give to his friend when the situation is so specific. "What was it about anyway?"

"I don't know. I just feel so—broken?"

Seungkwan stares at the laptop screen, the text prompter blinking at him.

"Like, why am I like this? Sometimes I get so _restless_ and I try so hard to fix things, that I get so aggravated and I'm suddenly just rearing for a fight. I don't want to be like _this_ but I don't know how to undo it."

Jeonghan gives him such a sympathetic look that Seungkwan feels it burns him down to the core. Jeonghan is amazing - any other situation, Jeonghan can handle and give great advice to, but Seungkwan's relationships that he keeps on self-sabotaging because he can't fill the void in his heart is something way above Jeonghan's pay grade.

"I'm sorry," Seungkwan finally croaks out, just exhausted and slumped over, his flesh finally giving up on the pressure. "It's selfish of me."

"What's selfish of you?"

" _This_. All of _this_."

"If you're selfish, why aren't you happy?"

"I'm _happy_ ," Seungkwan tries to defend, "I am."

"You remember what I said before? Over the phone call?"

Jeonghan looks like he just realized something, and it's a face Seungkwan is intrigued by. He only ever sees the lightbulb expression on Seokmin, so seeing it on Jeonghan feels a bit validating. Like Jeonghan has to think hard about this particular thing, and that he cares enough to think hard about it.

“Uh-huh?”

“Being happy is _different_ from being content and settling,” Jeonghan says, “And it’s okay to accept that you’re not happy and want to do something about it.”

“You’re giving me the exact opposite advice.”

“It’s advice, not a dying rule,” Jeonghan snorts, giving Seungkwan a small smile.

“My point is, if you don’t want to, you don’t _have to_. Life is too short for decisions that will make you hurt in the long run. I just give you advice based on what I know, but I haven’t lived your life. I don’t know what it’s like to be in love with someone from seven years ago.”

Seungkwan opens his mouth to reply, before looking down and fiddling with his notebook.

“I don’t want to hurt Wonwoo.”

“But what if you already _are_ hurting him?” Jeonghan holds his hand, and Seungkwan looks at him; He reckon he must’ve looked heart wrenchingly upset, because Jeonghan is making that face that he does whenever he thinks Seungkwan is about to cry.

“Listen, you either move on from Hansol or you let go of Wonwoo and heal without hurting anyone, at least that’s how I see it.”

The squeeze Jeonghan gives to his hand is both reassuring and uncertain, and Seungkwan knows that fear well.

“Time's arrow neither stands still nor reverses, it merely marches forward, right?”

* * *

_4:23 PM · Feb 9, 2021_

A blank tweet from Hansol containing a picture of ‘ _On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous’_ by Ocean Vuong. A passage is highlighted. It reads:

> Maybe in the next life we’ll meet each other for the first time—believing in everything but the harm we’re capable of. Maybe we’ll be the opposite of buffaloes. We’ll grow wings and spill over the cliff as a generation of monarchs, heading home. Green Apple.
> 
> Like snow covering the particulars of the city, they will say we never happened, that our survival was a myth. But they’re wrong. You and I, we were real. We laughed knowing joy would tear the stitches from our lips.
> 
> Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field—it was always there—where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more.
> 
> As a rule, be more.
> 
> As a rule, I miss you.
> 
> As a rule, “little” is always smaller than “small.” Don’t ask me why.
> 
> I’m sorry I don’t call enough.

* * *

In senior year, Sungmin started calling Hansol _‘Vernon'_ and the name stuck until college shortened it even further into _‘Vern’_.

Seungkwan, ever adverse to change, always called him Hansol. Even when the distance started growing between him and _them_ , he’d still dutifully wait with Hansol after school for the bus to fetch them. The conversations would be stilted, sometimes just plainly non-existent, and Seungkwan started talking to Mingyu instead.

But they still liked the same songs. And Hansol still played Seungkwan’s favorites—no way he didn’t know, because Seungkwan made a playlist on Hansol's iPod—and Hansol still quietly sang along when it’s Seungkwan’s turn to play his songs on the aux. And when Hansol’s stop arrived, he’d still climb down the bus and look at Seungkwan with a smile.

What did it mean?

It meant that Seungkwan had to move houses when his dad bought a new one, and leave the bus service. It meant that Seungkwan had to wait alone after school now, watching his old friends leave ahead of him, the sun setting and waiting in all his lonesome at 9 PM, not allowed to be angry when his father “forgot” to pick him up. Of course— _of course_ he’d be taken away. Nothing good ever stayed in Seungkwan’s life.

His mother, bless her heart, left his father when Seungkwan was still a baby. With her were his two sisters. As he grew up, Seungkwan pieced together parts of his past that no one in his two-part family could ever talk about in one cohesive timeline. He would learn that his mother left him because his father wouldn’t let her take Seungkwan. He would learn that the books his father stowed away at the back of his closet contained their old love letters, written in pencil on the last pages of the books they passed between each other.

The edge of Busan is much, much quieter than the heart of Seoul, and there’s an unspoken comfort when his mother wordlessly opens her door and lets Seungkwan in without asking him why he’s there.

She cooks him his favorite meals and watches bad movies with him on the third floor, her room feeling like a huge open window sometimes. And Seungkwan sometimes just sits there and has no words to offer and is just completely hanging on by the thread, and she’ll just lay down next to him and talk about random things. Her church friends. His nephew. His sisters’ antics. Her new air-fryer is _so amazing, Seungkwan-ah, won’t you try it with me tomorrow?_ And Seungkwan’s heart will twist so painfully as he says, _Okay_. On her shelf is a family picture without him. But next to it is another framed picture of one with him, his baby pictures stuck on the edges of the frame.

She always falls asleep first, and Seungkwan always stays up until the morning, and when she wakes up, he’s just about to go to sleep.

“You make me feel like I have a guardian angel,” His mom says, giving him a pink comforter and slipping out of the bed. She sits in front of her floor-length mirror and does her eyebrows. She’ll even put on some pink lipstick, too. Seungkwan watches her apply it delicately, her short curly hair falling down her shoulders perfectly even though she just woke up. Seungkwan used to find it funny, her putting some make-up on first thing in the morning, but now he understands it just a little bit: Taking care of yourself, just for yourself. Feeling good with your own skin.

Sometimes he’ll sleep, but days like this, where the wind is strong and tiny drizzles of raindrops are being carried in through the window, he quietly follows her to the balcony and watches her take a smoke.

There are a lot of questions he wanted to ask his mother as a child. Even now, as he watches his mother weed out and fix her garden on the balcony, hands precise and quiet, he finds himself wondering about it. _Hey mom, do you still love him? Hey mom, do you ever wonder where the love went? Hey mom, did it hurt you when you left me?_

But he doesn’t have to. The smoke from her lit cigarette looks like a small and unique smoke signal. She turns around and smiles at him, bringing over a small wooden stool chair next to her.

“Well,” She says, “Come help me.”

Seungkwan obediently sits down, and looks at the flowers she planted with so much care.

“They’re blooming.”

“Beautiful things, aren’t they?” She says, and if Seungkwan looks at her eyes hard enough, he’ll see the answers.

 _Yes_ , the answer says. _Yes._

* * *

_9 February at 18:55_

A Facebook post by Hansol containing notes about ‘ _On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous_ ’ by Ocean Vuong. Among the drivel reads out:

> [...] Vuong writes about loss and aging and displacement in past tense; not to say that he's moved past them (who has?) but that he understands a little better than he did yesterday. He's in the realm of forgiveness, he's okay, and it's so god damn comforting in 2021 where it feels like hopefulness is, in itself, synonymous with naivete. Where fatalism is a necessary tool to prevent further disappointment. [...]
> 
> [...] Little Dog chooses tenderness when it's far easier to be spiteful; language and forgiveness turning into the most graceful acts of transgression. In doing so, I'd say he's braver than I can ever hope to be. [...]

* * *

In senior year, Sungmin started calling Hansol _‘Vernon’_ and Seungkwan still called him Hansol.

He lied: there are a lot of memories that vividly run through his head whenever he thinks of Hansol, but the second one that stands out was when Hansol broke up with his girlfriend in third year. Seungkwan went through a similar patch with his boyfriend from a year ago: The parents found out, they broke up, end of the story.

Seungkwan was standing at the wayside of the covered court during dismissal when Hansol suddenly walked up to him, eyes glassy and brown hair disheveled. Seungkwan awkwardly tugs at his bag straps, giving him a hesitant smile. He only saw Hansol cry twice his whole life. This was the third time.

“Hansol?”

When Seungkwan uttered his name, Hansol suddenly walked forward and hugged him, arms around his waist and face wet with tears, Seungkwan’s shoulder immediately damp. He felt his forehead heat up, instinctively winding his own arms around Hansol.

“What’s going on?” Seungkwan nervously laughed, “What’s wrong?”

There was confusion, and warmth, and his heart dropped when he heard what Hansol said.

“What happened to you guys happened to us too,” he said, “She broke up with me.”

The story was lost in the following sniveling: His ex-girlfriend played a prank on her sister, her sister was unhinged and told their parents about her relationship with Hansol. They didn’t like him—Hansol argued _no one_ in her life liked him—so it was a huge mess. Seungkwan didn’t know what to say. What do you say to that? Sixteen-year-olds who never had parental figures in their lives weren’t prepared to deal with things like this. Everything about love and romance, they learned from TV and literature, and when these things happened, it always ended up being okay. But why did it feel like it wouldn’t?

But you could never say that. You could never say, _it’s not going to be okay_. You can never say _Well, Hansol, this is it. Life’s just like that._ There were some truths that were too much of a knife’s edge, even for them, and when Seungkwan grew up, they would still be razor, and in the end you will almost always just end up saying:

“It’s going to be okay,” Seungkwan murmured, patting Hansol’s back. “You’ll be fine.”

It was apparent none of them believed that. But that was okay; no one would care, really, if they lie to each other about that. Not one person batted an eyelash at the two of them hugging at the side of the covered court, even when it was dismissal and everyone was filing out at the gates, brimming with excitement to finally come home after a long day.

But not them, not when they were suspended in a state of mourning, two people clutching at each other like it was the end of the world. Hansol missed the bus, missed his friends, but in his quiet, he stayed with Seungkwan until nightfall regardless. Seungkwan wasn’t even sure if Hansol figured out how he’d get home, and a part of him wondered if his father would let him hitch a ride.

“I just want to go home and not have to explain anything to anyone,” he said, “Just need someone to smile at me at the end of the day and say, _‘Hey, how was your day?’_ and I’d say, _‘My day was good.’_ and I don’t have to explain it.”

Seungkwan quietly passed him a popsicle. It was already dark, and the guards shooed them out of the school; They’re just now standing outside, leaning against the brick wall of the school, watching the sky go dark and the cars that passed by.

“So,” Seungkwan said, “How was your day?”

“My day was shit.”

They looked at each other, the engine of the cars passing by being the only sound breaking the silence in the cold evening. After one long beat, out of nowhere, they cracked a smile, and started laughing.

They laughed, and laughed, shoulders bumping against each other. Melona ice cream never tasted so sweet until then.

* * *

On the back of the old copy of Anne Frank owned by his father, Seungkwan’s mother wrote this with an elegant script and black ink:

_Tears last only for tonight, but gladness comes with the morning._

On the opposite page, along the margins of the subscription slip checked out with the name of his sister but never sent, his father wrote with a blocky handwriting and blue ink:

_I’ll be alright, as long as it matters, as long as you’re here with me now._

* * *

“We’re renovating the house soon.”

“Oh, really?” Seungkwan says, munching on the pizza. “Where are you guys going to stay in the meantime?”

“At my grandmother’s place, we’ll be renting out the apartments at the back of her house.”

He’s at Wonwoo’s place, coming over to stay the night before coming home. By some stroke of luck, Wonwoo’s house is closer to Busan than his own, so sometimes he stays here instead of going home directly. Wonwoo’s house is nice and homely, but a little dilapidated; Seungkwan likes to think that it’s the house’s way of showing its scars and age, how long it stood against time.

They ordered pizza for breakfast, and they’re comfortably sitting on the front porch, the house’s double doors open as the morning light gently cascades down the marble rails.

“You know,” Wonwoo says, drinking his Coke, “We’ve been planning this renovation for years already and only got the approval for it now.”

“Yeah?”

“Mh-hm. And my grandmother has been hounding my dad to make sure to save the stained glass in the front door,” Wonwoo gestures at the glass, light blues and oranges and greens coloring the panel next to the double doors. “She kept on saying that it was expensive and it looks really nice and all that, so we have to save it.”

“Let me guess,” Seungkwan chortles, “It’s not expensive at all.”

“I don’t know about that,” Wonwoo laughs, lifting another piece of pizza up to his mouth. He seems to be taking his time, and Seungkwan patiently waits for the next part of the story, chewing on his food and drinking down his iced coffee.

“Recently dad's dad asked him to save the stained glass too. And he’s more honest about it.”

“What’d he say?”

“It was the very first thing they bought together when they made the house, and they’re now separated. So it seems like my grandmother wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons, not because it’s pretty.”

“Oh,” Seungkwan quietly says, “They both asked it to be kept.”

“Yeah, separately, too. They don’t even talk anymore.”

They both stare at the stained glass, and Seungkwan can’t help but feel the pang in his heart, sneaking to stare at Wonwoo’s expression. He is, as always, a blank slate—Wonwoo looks at things like he’s trying to dissect them in his mind, trying to see which parts he can keep and which parts he can talk about. He treasures things that way: silently, with a tender touch of poetry in everything he imparts his feelings on.

“Maybe it’s like that sometimes,” Wonwoo sighs out, “Sometimes you meet people you love and adore, and they change you and your life, and you’ll always think of them. Even if they’re not meant to be in your life forever.”

The statement feels double-edged, and Seungkwan isn’t sure which part of the metaphorical knife both of them are holding on to. He shakes the crumbs off his hands with the weight of a thousand emails, feeling himself fracture over and over as he spritzes some alcohol and disinfects his hands.

He nudges Wonwoo’s hands with the bottle, gently taking his shaking ones and pouring some on them. Wonwoo lets him, watching as Seungkwan takes his wrists and rubs his hands together, like a child playing with putty. There’s a ghost of his touch over his skin, like afterimages of kindness they’ve extended to each other throughout the years. Seungkwan thinks of Wonwoo’s first words to him— _Sorry,_ he said in the home for the elderly that they volunteered to—and fights the tears that are threatening to spill over for no reason at all.

“It’s okay,” Wonwoo says, because he’s nice. Too nice. He holds Seungkwan’s hands as if Seungkwan is the one who needs comforting. “You were always going to choose this, you just didn't know it yet.”

 _This_ :

Wonwoo turns Seungkwan around, like a permission to let Seungkwan cry. His arms securely wrap around Seungkwan, arm over arm, skin over skin, and they’ve done this a thousand times, but there’s a sting that comes with knowing that this will be the last time. And if it’s not, then it’ll be a very, very long time before they circle back to it again. His tears finally spill over when Wonwoo squeezes him in his arms, and Seungkwan feels like he doesn’t even have the right to cry.

“Hey, how long have we known each other?”

“Five years,” Seungkwan says, voice shaky, sniffing and looking down at his feet. “Five years.”

“That’s a long time, isn’t it?”

“We—” Seungkwan stops himself.

He can’t say ‘ _We’ll be friends, right?_ ’ because that’s just selfish. He can’t say, ‘ _We’ll still play together, right?_ ’ because that’s a lie, too. This whole time, he never once lied to Wonwoo, and he wants it to stay that way. He wants Wonwoo to remember him as someone who always said the truth, even if it was a razor.

“I love you,” Seungkwan says, because that’s the _truth_. It’s been his truth, and it’s a truth that will never be erased. “I did, I _do_ , you know?”

Wonwoo laughs, and Seungkwan blames himself because it sounds stained with pain. Jeon Wonwoo doesn’t cry. Everyone knows that. But that’s because not everyone is Seungkwan, and it’s just one of the graces Wonwoo ever reserved for Seungkwan, and only Seungkwan.

“I do, I know,” Wonwoo sighs. “You wouldn’t have fought this long if you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Seungkwan croaks out, “It’s not like you lacked anything. I just—”

“ _I know_. Never wanted anything more, just wanted him, right?”

 _Even if it was a razor_ , _Seungkwan._ He lets out a breath.

“Yeah—I guess, yeah.”

Silence descends on them, and like everything—it’s comfortable, if not melancholic. Wonwoo is right, in a sense where Seungkwan always knew that he would choose this. Maybe if he didn’t realize it, he would’ve never been plagued by Hansol, and maybe if he never remembered things, maybe he would’ve been able to move forward without any weighted baggage in him.

 _Living in the past_ , his mom called it. _We do that all the time_. _Makes us feel like we have more time._

 _I don’t want to live in it._ He said, _I want to bury it._

That’s a lie. Every night he tears himself apart and thinks of Hansol. And when morning comes, he tries to tell himself that he’s not looking for more, that the emails they send to each other are just for him to heal from the ways he tore himself apart. But that’s a lie too. Seungkwan lies a lot. To himself. And he's just now realizing how much he actually self-sabotages everything in his life, and maybe that's why nothing good ever stays in it. Because he doesn't let them.

Wonwoo was everything. Wonwoo understood him in a way no one else ever could, and sometimes Seungkwan looks at him and sees his whole lifetime play out—but with it comes a void; a hungry emptiness that consumes him whenever he wakes up, whenever he reads, whenever he writes, whenever he holds Wonwoo’s hands. Inside him, a space unable to be filled has been carved out. It’s been there for seven years, maybe far longer. Seungkwan thought Jeonghan’s advice of settling was bad because it was unfair to Wonwoo; but he realized that he only thought it was unfair because deep down, he already made up his mind.

“The one thing about settling is that you almost always know when it's one or the other,” Wonwoo said when they talked about it, “And sometimes we choose to settle for wrong reasons because we want to punish ourselves. Settling is bad when it's about giving up.”

Maybe that’s how Wonwoo realized it, too. He had always been too smart.

Seungkwan leans back, and Wonwoo lets him. Briefly, in his mind, Seungkwan thinks that he’ll never forget these small pockets of grace and kindness Wonwoo gives, even when they’re at the end of the line, at the brink of undoing. The comfort stays, and Seungkwan takes it, hoping Wonwoo feels the last beats of closure he feels as well.

“What are you going to do now?”

It’s a quiet question, one Seungkwan knows he’s not obligated to answer. But this—this is the easy part, that comes with being with Wonwoo and knowing him for so long: Talking.

“I don’t know,” Seungkwan says, “I’m not quite sure where to go from here.”

“Then,” Wonwoo replies, “You just keep on living.”

 _That’s the hard part_ , Seungkwan wants to say, but he doesn’t. He keeps that one for himself. He keeps this moment for himself, too. And when Wonwoo lets go and they finally face each other, they smile sadly, but there’s no more tear streaks, no more sniffing. Maybe this is how Wonwoo wants Seungkwan to remember him, too: Making the hard choices, even if it was a razor.

“You know what,” Wonwoo points at the stained glass. “It’s ugly as hell, isn’t it?”

Seungkwan doesn’t hide his smile; he doesn’t have to, not when Wonwoo is giving him _that_ smile. _One year,_ it says, _one year and I’ll be back in your life._

They’re best friends, after all.

“It really is,” Seungkwan whispers, like it’s a secret they’ll both keep forever.

* * *

_10:14 PM · Feb 14, 2021_

_**Vern**_ _@chwenotchew_

and while you sleep i’ll be scared so by the time you wake i’ll be brave i’ll be brave i’ll be brave

* * *

“If you were diagnosed with dementia, what would be the last memory you want to cling on to?”

“Ah?”

Wonwoo looked over him, before looking back to his living room’s ceiling. It was peeling off. They were laying down on Wonwoo’s bed, the windows wide open because it was too hot that summer of 2018.

“Not to romanticize having dementia, but I've always worried what would happen if that were the case. That you'd forget everything but something or someone.”

“If that was the case,” Seungkwan said, after a long pause, “I think I haven't lived my life long enough to have a memory to cling on to.”

Seungkwan wanted to leave it at that, but a faint memory dashed through his mind, hitting him with nostalgia so strong that he felt like his breath was knocked away from his lungs. For a moment, he was eight-years old again, golden sunlight filtering through his hometown’s living room, soft classical music playing in the background while he busied himself with his toys.

“I think...I want to remember my grandfather,” Seungkwan continued, “The times I quietly played in the living room while he read the paper during the afternoons. He'd tell me to go take a siesta but I'd just keep on saying, ‘ _Okay_.’ And he’d look at me and he’d just continue reading the paper.”

He could feel Wonwoo looking at him, staring intensely and hair disheveled. Seungkwan didn’t need to look back. He knew exactly what Wonwoo looked like, burnt the image in his mind so well that he could probably draw him when prompted.

“The only semblance of peace and loving quiet from when I was a child was during those moments,” Seungkwan softly said. This time, he turned to look at Wonwoo. “How about you?”

“Is it weird to say I'd pick something similar?” Wonwoo smiled, and Seungkwan shook his head, prompting him to go on.

“Back in our condo in Daegu, I would always sleep in my granddad's room. He never slept on a bed because it made it hard for him to breath, so he would sleep in the same rocking chair we have in the living room right now.”

“The old creaky thing?”

“The old creaky thing.”

“And?”

“I would sleep on his bed and he would make this tiny fortress of pillows around me. And he had another rocking chair right beside it—It was wooden and non-padded and hurt to sit on for too long—But he'd wait there for a few hours just to make sure I was sleeping okay.”

Wonwoo sighed a little, before continuing to say, “Sometimes, he'd put his favorite operas or symphonies on. He'd always sing _‘Summertime’_ by Ella Fitzgerald in his baritone voice before tucking me in. It's one of my fondest memories of him.”

Seungkwan watched how Wonwoo’s eyes fluttered close, as if he was hearing his grandfather at that moment. There was an inexplicable want to touch, to make Wonwoo feel that someone loved him in that moment as much as he was loved back then, but Seungkwan couldn’t say that. Not when his own feelings were curled up inside of him, unable to be given out.

Instead, he said, “He loved you so much.”

“I've never managed to sing Summertime to anyone but my little brother, when he was still a baby,” Wonwoo laughed a little, eyes turning into crescents, Seungkwan’s heart skipping a beat or two. “I feel like it's a song that I could only share with someone I truly love.”

A year later, on Wonwoo’s birthday, Seungkwan stayed overnight to wait for the countdown of his birthday. They’d been together for half a year, and when midnight finally hit, Seungkwan gave him the handmade gift he slaved over for weeks, bandaged fingers showing for it: a book made from scratch, filled with pressed flowers and personal letters.

Wonwoo ran his fingers across the message scrawled at the front of the page:

 _If you ever think I don’t love you anymore,_ it said, _read this._

He looked up, eyes wide with affection, much more so when Seungkwan giggled out a “ _Happy birthday, Wonwoo!_ ”

Seungkwan let out a surprised yelp as Wonwoo stood up, pulling him to stand up with him; he positioned them into something like a starting stance for waltz, and started singing. Seungkwan buried his face into the crook of Wonwoo’s neck the moment he realized what the words were, what the _song_ was. He memorized this song, listened to it constantly, held it in his heart as closely as he could—

 _Summertime_ , Wonwoo started, voice low and soft and whispered, only for Seungkwan to hear, _And the living is easy…_

* * *

_4:00 PM · Oct 18, 2020_

A tweet by Hansol, on the same day he read Seungkwan’s email. It was a lyric from _‘Two Slow Dancers’_ by Mitski. It reads:

> It would be a hundred times easier  
>  If we were young again  
>  But as it is  
>  And it is  
>  We're just two slow dancers, last ones out

* * *

Seungkwan wakes up, and he cries for three minutes.

Cries, as in he heaves, curling up into himself on his bed, hands covering his face. He sniffs so hard that his nose hurts, lungs struggling to take in air, mouth open in a silent scream. It’s the culmination of feeling like an open wound; The process of healing is grueling, sometimes much more painful than what caused it in the first place. It starts out with a vengeance he hasn’t felt in a while, and like ocean waves, it hits in intervals, but it gets easier. Every wave, it gets easier.

By the time the feeling subsides and he manages to calm himself, he breathes out and wipes his face with the back of his hand. Then, he looks at his window, the afternoon light barely making it through his thick curtain and fogged up window.

He thinks, _Well, that was a good cry._

The heaviness dissipates, and he slips out of his bed.

Life without Wonwoo is the same, in the sense that it goes on.

What else can he do? By instinct, he tells Jeonghan first, because Jeonghan is as close as family can be. Jeonghan asks him if he’s good, if he’s fine, and _are you taking care of yourself, Kwannie?_ and Seungkwan can’t handle the kindness he thinks he doesn’t deserve, so he keeps his answers short but grateful.

It gets too much and he does what he does best: he runs away, this time from his house, directly going to Busan. He’s screwed, his dad is going to kill him for how many classes he already ditched and probably failed due to absences, but not a single part of him is functioning well right now. And Seungkwan thinks that that’s the difference between the two of them, and between his mother and his father: His father believes that you can always set aside the void in favor of productivity. His mother, and by extension, he, falls into a well, and continues falling until they hit rock bottom.

That’s how you learn how to stand up. You find a place to land and try to rise again.

Three hours later, he’s on his mother’s doorsteps. She opens the door after the doorbell rings three times. She’s so _small_ , a frail woman just about reaching Seungkwan’s shoulders, and often Seungkwan wonders where she gets the strength for anything at all.

She takes one look at him, and shakes her head.

“Oh, you broke your own heart, didn’t you?”

“No,” Seungkwan says, because he didn’t, really. He probably broke Wonwoo’s heart, and Seungkwan can argue that his own has been broken from all those years ago already. It survives solely on bandages given by people in his life who have loved him enough, braving the shrapnel and shattered glass pieces on the floor.

“Then you broke Wonwoo’s heart, which is more stupid,” his mom laughs, Seungkwan scrunching up his face at the accurate guess. “Come in, I already cooked lunch.”

The house is the same as always. He drops his bag on the ground and makes a place for himself on the couch, the television playing a drama Seungkwan had heard about from his mother from his visit last week. His phone pings with a few notifications, smiling at Seokmin’s message, checking up on him. The notification above, though, steals his attention easily, and he presses on it to view the whole thing.

> _**Vern**_ _@chwenotchew_
> 
> i hope you see this. i’m just sorry for not keeping in touch. i want to say that i want you to be happy, like that will make up for everything we ever missed and left unsaid, but sometimes i wonder if i actually want you to just be as empty as i am

It’s a no-context tweet, and Seungkwan, in spite of himself, feels his heart beat faster and his throat constrict. His hands click to screenshot the tweet, sending it to Jeonghan with a “ _????_ ” and when he shifts back to the app, he feels a chill run up his spine as he realizes that Hansol has deleted the tweet, only to make another shorter one.

> _**Vern**_ _@chwenotchew_
> 
> there's a lot of things i can't tell you, and the first of many is still 'i love you'

_They’re not for you,_ Seungkwan tries to tell himself, _They’re not for you, don’t get your hopes up. Stop it._

But for who else would they be? Since starting their correspondence, Hansol has been tweeting more about out of context things like these, along with songs that are weirdly specific and thematic. It keeps Seungkwan’s hopes up, sometimes. Jeonghan has shifted from [Don’t send him an email] to [Why not send him a picture you took?] and Seungkwan honestly doesn’t know if it’s a blessing to have a friend who enables him as much as Yoon Jeonghan does.

Should he? He shouldn’t. He _really_ shouldn’t, because this isn’t healthy, and who knows, maybe he’s just fucking Hansol up even further with these anonymous emails. But he can’t help himself, as always, and tries to comfort himself by thinking that this is going to be the last one. (It never is.)

He opens his email and ruminates on which one to send. He types in the time of the day as the subject title, and leaves the body empty. He scrolls through his gallery, careful not to press on any photos that run the risk of fully exposing him, before settling on a shot he took at a mall’s parking lot. It was the evening skies, purple to black, the crescent moon in the middle with a lone star lined up above it.

He breathes in, then out, and thinks—You’re made of _glass_ , Seungkwan. But you went through things. And you’re still alive. You’re _tempered_.

He sends it.

* * *

_1:13 AM · Feb 8, 2016_

A tweet from Hansol’s old locked account. It reads:

i'm not leaving; i just need to know that you'd care if i did.

* * *

“I can’t believe you graduated already. Seems like it was just yesterday when you were in my office because you fought with someone. Now, you’re going to be a teacher.”

Seungkwan barks out a laugh with the disciplinarian officer, shaking his blonde hair out of his eyes.

“Thank you for the referral, really. It’s really a dream for me to be able to teach here.”

She takes his hand and squeezes it, like she has always believed in him. The jury’s still out if Seungkwan deserves that belief, but he takes it. He’s getting better at accepting kindness, these days, and while the year passed by with high highs and low lows, right now Seungkwan likes to think that he’s getting his shit together.

He exits the office, and breathes in. _Alright_ , he thinks, _This isn’t so bad, being back in this campus_. The nostalgia assaults him still, but right now, at this moment, it stays as a low hum. Like a quiet song played on a bus ride home. From a distance, he hears students laugh, and it brings a smile to his face.

He’s free to go for the day, having finished his orientation, but he takes his time. The campus changed a lot in the past eight years: Another floor has been added, and what used to be the greenhouse is now another building. Somehow, they have elevators now, and Seungkwan fondly remembers the days of him dragging his heavy backpack all the way up to the fourth floor. The paint job is more vibrant, and the windows are now fully shut, since the school finally installed air conditioning in the classrooms.

Some other things, though, stay the same. The grass on the lawn still covers the whole field, and Seungkwan still feels the same, sleepy comfort that the atmosphere brings down, the sky perfectly blue. The campus is mostly empty, being that it’s already after class hours, and he smiles at the blooming flowers at the side of the staircases. Footsteps slowly descend and Seungkwan looks up, just for his world to once again freeze.

Only this time, there’s a feeling that Hansol freezes, too, suspended in motion, hand on the rails, eyebrows shooting up as he meets Seungkwan’s eyes. He looks—good. His black hair is just a bit longer, and he’s dressed in a button-up shirt and slacks, a far cry from his usual casual clothes that Seungkwan sees on Instagram.

“Oh,” Seungkwan coughs, stepping back a bit and smiling awkwardly. “Hansol.”

Hansol, damn him, smiles back. And he’s still as beautiful as Seungkwan remembers. Still as striking as the Hansol in the bus rides, eight years ago.

“Seungkwan.”

“Why were you here?”

“They invited me to do a seminar for Career Day. How about you, why are you here?”

“I’m going to teach literature here. Today’s my orientation.”

“Really? I’m surprised you’d willingly come back here.”

“I know, right? Life’s so surprising sometimes.”

They walk around the campus, an awkward distance away from each other as they enter the pathway and walk to the carpark. The ground is littered with leaves and stray petals, and the place is empty. On the far corner, there’s still the rock pile that they used to climb every lunch, trekking all the way up to look over the school walls.

“How’s Sofia?”

“Oh, she’s fine. She’s already starting college.”

“Ah, that makes me feel old.”

“What does that make me?”

Hansol laughs, and the tangled ball of nervousness and tension at the pit of Seungkwan’s stomach slowly disappears. Hansol looks so much older now, features sharper and tone lax. He’s much more laidback, much more open. It makes Seungkwan wistful—he was so _small_ —but it also makes him thankful that they’ve both come so far, enough to grow up. They round around the building while making small talk, taking their time to reconnect and know each other again. Seungkwan pieces together the small parts of Hansol that he only saw through social media with the actual living Hansol right in front of him, and his heart thuds loudly against his chest at how Hansol just looks at him in the small beats of silence.

Like right now, in the kindergarten playground. They sit next to each other on the swing set, and Seungkwan thinks of the emails he sent for the past two years. His last email was a month ago, a short _i hope you’re okay_ when Hansol was going through a rough patch. He wonders if Hansol figured it all out, and the thought of that intensifies as he looks over only to see him already staring. The sun is already setting, and the lights around the campus are slowly turning off area by area. Seungkwan thinks of a permanent goodbye—Sungmin—and a goodbye still in the process of healing—Wonwoo—and wonders, between those two, where his next goodbye with Hansol will lie in.

“I’m moving back somewhere near here,” Hansol suddenly says, looking away and licking his bottom lip, “I’m getting a place around this area.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Seungkwan says, breath hitching, “Oh, when?”

“Tomorrow, actually,” Hansol laughs, sheepish, before his face makes a hesitant expression. “I—Do you live somewhere near? I’m not really familiar with the area anymore—”

“Yes, I do, I still live at the same place,” Seungkwan exclaims, aware that he’s about to _ramble_ , and dear lord, it’s embarrassing, but Hansol just grins at him. _Grins_ at him. “I can help you around. I mean, if you want. I’m not forcing you to accept it.”

“That’ll be great,” Hansol says, and he looks so _fond_ , eyes softening in a way Seungkwan hasn’t seen in years, and it hurt. It hurt _good_ , and it hurt _bad_ , and it hurt _everything_ in between, but that’s just part of the package deal, is the thing. It will hurt before it heals, he learned, and right now it’s getting there.

“Want to exchange numbers?”

“Sure.”

Seungkwan swallows down the bile rising in his throat. He tells himself not to drop his phone when he passes it to Hansol.

“I’m still not used to you having a phone,” Seungkwan laughs, double-checking his number that he puts in Hansol’s phone, “You went through our whole high school years without one.”

“I was so convinced they’re just our personalized GPS for the government, or something.”

Seungkwan snickers, and they exchange phones again. He saves Hansol’s contact—He only typed in his number—and his mind stops at the field asking for the name.

“Should I save you on my phone as Vernon, now?”

He meant for it to be a joke. Hansol is always going to be Hansol, to him, and the cute _Vernonie_ he used to call him back in high school is the closest he could possibly get to using it. But Hansol looks up, like eyes widening for just a fraction of a second, before giving him that damn fond look all over again.

“Nah,” He smiles, “For you, it’s Hansol.”

Seungkwan smiles back, both grateful and flustered at the same time. He looks back down, but not before spying Hansol’s lockscreen. He almost lets out a gasp.

On it is a familiar photo of a crescent moon, with a lone star perfectly lined up above.

* * *

_6:43 PM · Feb 15, 2022_

_**Vern**_ _@chwenotchew_

img desc: idiot boy tries not to make the 24 year old version of a 15 year old mistake

Attached is a picture taken at the kindergarten playground of their alma mater. A blurry figure about to turn around as the sun sets, blonde hair just a little bit on the longer side.

* * *

“Did you scare him off?”

“Who?” Jeonghan asks, in a sickly sweet voice, and even over the phone, Seungkwan knows that he has the coy face he makes when he does something he’s proud of, but is otherwise dubious in nature. “I don’t know what you mean, Kwannie.”

“Hansol, of course,” Seungkwan busies himself with making dinner, trying to settle his nerves. “I left for only a minute, but I know how much chaos you can cause in less.”

“I didn’t, we just talked about you!”

“And what did you say? Did you backstab me?”

“No,” They both laugh, knowing that neither of them will seriously ever do that. “We were just sharing stories.”

“Like what?”

“I told him, ‘You know Kwannie is a crybaby. Once, his laptop died in the middle of his project, and he cried for two hours straight before opening it and realizing he turned on the autosave feature,’” Seungkwan makes a noise of embarrassment and protest, but Jeonghan ignores him and continues, “And you cry about a lot of other things. Because you get so stressed out so easily, sometimes. And he just sighed like it’s endearing to him, and he said, ‘ _I know_.’”

And what can Seungkwan say to that? All of it is true.

He’s a mess, but he prides himself as an organized mess. Even his breakdowns have a schedule, he used to say, and he always times himself. No more than two hours, always. Once the two-hour mark hits, he has to get his shit together, and he has to be better than before. It’s a plan he sticks to because once upon a time, he didn’t want to be like his mother, falling over and over again for a man who hurt her enough for three lifetimes, all of which her children will now live out.

But he is exactly like her. It’s not a bad thing, Seungkwan thinks, as long as you don’t let it consume you. He watched his mother smoke a whole cigarette in one inhale once, and Seungkwan likes to think that that keeps her grounded. They all have those little ways of coping. His mother, her cigarettes. Seungkwan, his little emails.

 _Living in the past_ , Seungkwan thinks, _We do it all the time. Makes us feel like we can fix ourselves._

“And then,” Jeonghan plows through once he realizes Seungkwan isn’t responding, “I told him, ‘ _But hey, Seungkwan is happier. He looks happier. You think you did that?_ ’”

Seungkwan feels a pinch in his heart. Then in his lungs. Then to his cheeks, because he can’t contain his curiosity. “What did he say?”

Jeonghan laughs, like he’s the one who’s about to feel the serotonin boost from Hansol’s answer.

“Then he said, ‘ _I like to think I did_. _I’d like to keep it that way._ ’”

* * *

_March 08, 2022_

A relationship status update by Jeon Wonwoo, proudly announcing his relationship with Kwon Soonyoung.

Seungkwan messages them a congratulations, and Wonwoo replies a _thank you_ , with a smiley emoji at the end.

* * *

In high school, people used to say that he and Hansol had a connected stomach.

It was because when the other felt sick, the other would fall into the same illness, too; acid reflux often victimized them, and Seungkwan had lost count of how many times both of them would run into the restroom to puke, only to find out that the other was already in the cubicle next to them, going through the same motions.

They weren’t _that_ similar. Seungkwan lived with the truth that Hansol was way cooler, way more artistic, way more cultured. Even though they would eventually share interests with each other, Hansol was always one step ahead, and Seungkwan didn’t mind. He liked that he had someone he could look up to, someone he’d try to surpass.

Even during the years, they grew apart, their interests collided. Film, design, theater—how do you escape all that? It was haunting, and nothing was worse than itching to talk about something with someone that you knew would just _get_ you. Understood you, riding the same wavelength.

But there are still some things that even now, Seungkwan wants to know about. Things that even now, with Hansol’s arm pressing against his as they shop for decorations to put up in his apartment, Seungkwan can’t bring up. He wants to ask, _Did you know it was me in the emails?_ He wants to ask, _Why did you leave me?_ He wants to ask, _Were you happy?_

“Oh, it’s an art gallery.”

 _The8_ , the gallery says, _Contemporary Art_. Paintings littered around, in different shades and using different mediums. Both of them enter the establishment, white walls making the paintings and the colors stand out. A slender man with slicked black hair and flowy scarf is sitting behind the counter, eyes fluttering up from behind the glasses to look at them briefly before continuing writing on his desk.

“My mom does paintings now.”

“I saw,” Seungkwan says, eyes scanning the paintings displayed. “She’s in New York, no?”

“Mhm. She’s sending me one of her works. I think I might buy some more though; I don’t want it to be lonely.”

Hansol’s brain works in ways Seungkwan will never be able to completely comprehend, but that’s fine. He sneaks a look at the corner of his eyes, and can't help the smile spreading across his lips when he sees the odd, rare calm on Hansol’s face. He looks so into his element that Seungkwan feels like he’s drawn to it, too: the quiet, satisfying calm.

_Settle._

A few paintings catch their eyes; a dabble into pointillism, an abstract interpretation of a wilting flower, a canvas littered with painted tea leaves. But both of them stop at the same time in front of a specific painting: a wide canvas with eggshells on its surface painted and edges outlined, an image that resembles an intricate stained glass. It portrays an image of a tarot card Seungkwan briefly recognizes; The Sun, XIX.

“There’s a description,” Hansol says, looking at the placard and reading it out. “‘In the tarot cards, drawing _The Tower_ is a symbol of destruction, ruination, being beaten so hard that you think you’ll never get up again. But life goes on, and in the next three cards, we see _The Star_ , _The Moon_ , and finally, _The Sun_. After admitting your truths and swallowing your faults, _The Sun_ rewards your triumph, and symbolizes the peace and harmony you achieve through fighting your way up.’”

The Sun.

How fitting, Seungkwan thinks, his hands clenching. Third year when he learned that _Sol_ is the personification of the Sun in ancient Roman, and calling Hansol ‘ _Sollie’_ had never felt more sacred until after he found out about it. He’s never been one to fully commit his feelings and beliefs in readings, but the relief and reassurance that washes over him at that moment, standing in front of this painting next to the man he thought he’d never see _ever again_ , it feels too much like fate—and that, Seungkwan believes in more than anything else.

He looks at Hansol, surprised for just a bit that Hansol is looking at him, but it morphs into a rare moment of understanding—a rare moment of being connected, knowing exactly that the other is feeling what you’re feeling, too. A less gross version of them vomiting their guts out at the same time during high school. A more romantic version of them hugging each other in the middle of mourning.

Seungkwan knew, then, at that moment, that it will all come. Eventually, it will. Hansol looks like he wants to say a thousand different things, and Seungkwan knows _he_ wants to say a million other more. And there’s a very, _very_ high chance that they will hurt each other, and there’s a very _very_ high chance that they have to do it over and over again. But there’s a comfort in this very brief, small moment of knowing that they will do it together.

“So,” Seungkwan settles, looking at the painting. “This is nice.”

Hansol smiles at him, before staring at the painting himself.

“Yeah.”

* * *

_orange_ <flowervineyards@gmail.com>  
to _hansolvchwe_

thank you for the past years. see you, sollie.

 **Hansol Vernon Chwe** <hansolvchwe@gmail.com>  
to _me_

you can just call me next time, boo

* * *

Hansol never gave back the pieces Seungkwan gave him.

Instead, it felt a lot like being replaced with cement. Like being replaced with permanence. Like when you break a mirror but you realize there’s a wall behind it—it feels a lot like that. Slowly, bit by bit, no matter how disappointing the answers may be, Seungkwan feels himself crack and peel away, only to realize that he has a strength in him that he never knew he had.

Why did you push me away? I thought you hated me.

_I never hated you. Fifteen-year-olds can be dumb. I’m sorry._

Did you know it was me?

_What do you think?_

Stop messing around with me, Sollie.

_Sorry, you’re just too cute sometimes._

So some things will forever sting, but it gets better. Every day, it gets better. And some things, even though they’ve been spoken through actions, can wait. Sometimes it makes Seungkwan restless, like he’s making a mistake all over again, like _this_ will slip by him _again_ , but Hansol holds his hand silently and it grounds him in ways he never thought he could be.

They redecorate his apartment, and Hansol fulfills his New Year’s resolution: he gives himself a break and walks slower with other people. He learns that Seungkwan doesn’t need a whole paragraph; he only needs the truth, and Hansol secretly adds that in his resolution, too. He slips a book in Seungkwan’s bag before he leaves, and Seungkwan promises to call when he comes home. Hansol walks him to the bus stop, anyway.

“This reminds me of a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“All those times we ran away from the bus driver to eat street food until evening,” Hansol recounts, “And the way you’d pout at me over the fences when I have to stay behind for practice.”

“I did _not_.”

“Yes you did,” Hansol laughs, swaying their hands. “You very much did.”

How did that even happen? The hands, Seungkwan means. It’s so easy to slip into habits, with Hansol, and often it’s like living two different eras at the same time. This Hansol is different; taller, wiser, broader. But he’s also the same. He still has the tenderness he tries to hide, the small inability to hide his feelings when they’re all over his sleeves.

“Your bus is here,” Hansol announces, but his fingers are still intertwined with Seungkwan’s.

“You have to actually let go of me.”

Hansol opens his mouth, like he has an immediate retort to that, but he must’ve changed his mind because he just closes it again, shakes his head with a small smile, before letting go of Seungkwan.

“Take care.”

Seungkwan gives him a pointed smile. “ _You_ take care.”

Hansol stays, watching him as he climbs up the bus, and looks at him through the window seat Seungkwan settles himself in. He waves at him, like a child, and Seungkwan silently laughs at how silly he looks—he feels, for a moment, that Hansol is going to run after the bus. Seungkwan sincerely thinks that it’s something Hansol is capable of subjecting himself to if he wanted.

There’s a relief in him when Hansol doesn’t. Even more relief, he decides, when Hansol’s name pops up on his phone, a message waiting for him to open.

* * *

A copy of _‘The Book of Two Ways’_ by Jodi Picoult. On the title page, just before the Table of Contents, Hansol’s messy scrawling says _Boo, go to page 370_. He flips to it, finding a highlighted passage. It reads:

> I imagine that it’s a shock to get this letter. I mean, it’s been years. Maybe I’m being presumptuous to think you would welcome hearing from me. Maybe you’ve done a better job than I ever did at taking the past and plastering over it. Now that I’ve made the decision to have this conversation, one-sided as it is, I am struggling to figure out what I want to say.
> 
> I guess I will start here: I haven’t thought of you every day. But I haven’t _never_ thought of you, either. When I do, it isn’t the kind of recollection that feels wispy or comforting. It is visceral, the clean cut of a sword. One moment you are not in my mind and the next, you are so sharp and intense that all my attention is focused there.
> 
> So you see, even after all these years, you take my breath away.

* * *

Hansol’s apartment has a balcony.

It’s big enough to fit a table and two chairs, a small roof on top of it to protect it from rainfall. Seungkwan leans on the railing, looking down at the expanse of the city he knows like it’s the back of his hand. His friends and Hansol’s friends just met during the much delayed housewarming party, and only some of them are left inside. The sliding door opens, and he looks at who is joining him for company, smiling as he sees Hansol.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Hansol settles next to him, only mildly reeking of beer. Seungkwan wonders how it is possible to feel you don’t know a person whom you also feel like you’ve known for your whole life. It’s a complicated affair; Jeonghan gave up trying to dissect it, and Seungkwan thinks maybe it’s high time to give up on trying to pick it apart, too, because maybe it’s just something that he’s supposed to let happen. Something that just naturally forms. Like Stalagmites.

“What’re you thinking of?” Hansol asks him, his eyes looking out into the horizon.

“Nothing, just, thank you,” Seungkwan fiddles with his fingers, “For letting me organize your housewarming party. I think you know how neurotic I get about these things. Sometimes I just need to work on _something_.”

Hansol looks at him, eyebrows lifting up like he’s trying to digest what Seungkwan said, before giving him a lazy grin.

“No problem.”

One star twinkles in the sky. Seungkwan wonders how Wonwoo is doing, briefly; wonders how the people he gave pieces of himself to are doing tonight. It’s such a nice night, he thinks, albeit a bit chilly, but it’s been such a long time since Seungkwan found himself free, head clear of anything remotely heavy. The lone star blinks at him, like it’s asking Seungkwan if he’s sure he’s okay, if he's sure everything is all good.

He looks down, straight down, and wonders what Sungmin’s last thoughts were. What her last view was like. Who did she think of? It’s a chilling thought, and sometimes Seungkwan gets haunted by it. _We all do,_ Hansol reassured him once, _don’t you ever think you’re alone in this. Look at me_ — _I got you._

In the living room, someone starts playing a song, and just his luck, it’s ‘ _Two Slow Dancers’_. He shares a look with Hansol, fully expecting it to sting and hurt like an open wound—but to his surprise, there is nothing left in him but calm; a growing, calming reassurance that Hansol fully knows what he’s thinking of, and what he’s remembering.

Someday, Seungkwan thinks, he wants to _settle_. He’s 25, half of fifty, but there’s no age limit in trying to figure out your heart, and all the hearts you’ve been missing. In a short, self-indulgent moment, he thinks of Hansol’s balcony filled with plants, just like the ones his mother has, and he thinks of his books littered and mixed up with Hansol’s, an amalgamation of their souls meeting together and _settling_. He thinks of sitting next to Hansol on the couch, one of these days, and he’ll ask, ‘ _So how did Dorothea actually go?’_ And Hansol will grin at him—the grin that says that he’s been waiting, all this time, for Seungkwan to ask—and launch into a tirade, ‘ _Well, it started out like this…’_

And some things will change, but some things will stay, too. In the living room, there are two paintings next to each other that Hansol put up so neither would be lonely; one from his mother, and the other being the painting they bought of a pseudo-stained glass, The Sun by Xu Minghao. And he likes to think that they’re part of it, too. _Settling_.

 _That isn’t so bad_ , Seungkwan thinks. Musing that he actually likes that. Doesn’t mind it. Doesn’t mind the way that Hansol looks at him that makes him think that Hansol wouldn’t mind it, either, someday. One of these days. Life is too short, but they’re making it count the best that they could, hoping the little things that say _I want to stay_ will be picked up and kept, until they’re ready to say it wholly. The little things that say _I’m sorry_. The little things that say _I still love you_.

But he can’t say those, not yet. Not now, not this moment. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe later. But for now, Seungkwan looks at Hansol and touches his hand.

“Hey,” Seungkwan says, before looking back at the lone star. “How was your day?”

Hansol intertwines their fingers. He gently squeezes Seungkwan’s hand. It says all those little things, and Seungkwan keeps them. He keeps all of them.

“My day was good.”

**Author's Note:**

> in their real life counterparts, wonwoo and seungkwan stayed together, and the stained glass is still there next to the double doors, catching the afternoon light perfectly every now and then. 
> 
> z, my hansol, if you're reading this: thank you for my youth. as the curtain falls down and the audience goes home, i fervently hope that someday, if we see each other again, we can share a smile with no regrets. if we do, tell me about dolorosa. let's both live out our truths, even if they are razors.
> 
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